Empowering American Women Artists: the Travel Writings of May Alcott Nieriker

Julia K. Dabbs Empowering American Women Artists: The Travel Writings of May Alcott Nieriker Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 15, no. 3 (Autumn 2016) Citation: Julia K. Dabbs, “Empowering American Women Artists: The Travel Writings of May Alcott Nieriker,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 15, no. 3 (Autumn 2016), https://doi.org/ 10.29411/ncaw.2016.15.3.3. Published by: Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art Notes: This PDF is provided for reference purposes only and may not contain all the functionality or features of the original, online publication. License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License Creative Commons License. Dabbs: Empowering American Women Artists: The Travel Writings of May Alcott Nieriker Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 15, no. 3 (Autumn 2016) Empowering American Women Artists: The Travel Writings of May Alcott Nieriker by Julia K. Dabbs Readers familiar with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women may well remember the character of Amy, the youngest of the March sisters who longed to be a professional artist, only to give up on that dream after marrying Laurie. What is less well known is that Amy’s character was based largely on Louisa’s youngest sister May, who similarly was an artist and longed to travel to Europe to pursue her professional goals. It is also true that both May and Amy were pampered by family members, worried about the shape of their noses, and liked fine things —and in respect to May, the latter trait is quite apparent in a portrait painted by her Parisian roommate, Rose Peckham (fig. 1).[1] However, that may be where the resemblances end. May was able to independently forge a successful career as an artist, and was more interested in empowering other women to do the same rather than fashioning herself into a graceful, domesticated butterfly.[2] Fig. 1, Rose Peckham, detail of head, Portrait of May Alcott, 1877. Oil on canvas. Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association, Orchard House, Concord. Available from: en.wikipedia.org. [larger image] Like many other American artists of the period, May sought to improve her skills and gain greater critical acclaim through study with European artists, such as T. L. Rowbotham Jr. in London and Edouard Krug in Paris. Somewhat unusually for an American woman artist of the period, she made not just one but three distinct and purposeful study trips to Europe (primarily London and Paris) during the 1870s before settling in Meudon, France, following her marriage in 1878 to a Swiss businessman, Ernest (Ernst) Nieriker. May regularly wrote letters to her family about her artistic and social experiences abroad, excerpts from which have been published in the only biography on May Alcott Nieriker to date, written in 1928 by Caroline Ticknor.[3] Yet she also found time to write for a public audience, composing at least five newspaper or journal articles,[4] an unpublished 309-page travel narrative,[5] and her best-known work, an 87-page travel guide entitled Studying Art Abroad, and How To Do It Cheaply (1879). Art historians have turned to this latter work, one of the first guidebooks written for American artists, for its forthright commentary on artistic life in Paris, London, and Rome.[6] 19 Dabbs: Empowering American Women Artists: The Travel Writings of May Alcott Nieriker Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 15, no. 3 (Autumn 2016) Excerpts from Alcott Nieriker’s Studying Art Abroad, as well as her letters, can also be found in primary source anthologies such as Sarah Burns and John Davis’s American Art: A Documentary History,[7] and Wendy Slatkin’s Voices of Women Artists.[8] Yet, there has been little in-depth analysis of her written oeuvre.[9] In this article I will pursue a line of inquiry suggested by Slatkin, who noted that Studying Art Abroad is a “valuable document of the growing feminist awareness among women artists by the last decades of the nineteenth century.”[10] Through a focused examination of Alcott Nieriker’s published travel writings, I intend to show that she sought not only to raise awareness of discriminatory practices in the art world, but also to empower women of modest means (like herself) to venture abroad, in order to pursue their serious study of art. May Alcott Nieriker’s Journey as an Artist To better understand what motivated May Alcott Nieriker’s publications, we need to consider the prolonged and convoluted trajectory of her career as a professional artist, especially in light of the obstacles she faced as a middle-class American woman. Alcott Nieriker’s artistic journey and creations, to date, have received less attention than her writings;[11] what follows is an initial foray into this topic, upon which future research can build. Given the Alcott family’s persistent financial difficulties during May’s formative years (her philosopher-father, Amos Bronson, owed several thousand dollars to creditors in 1840, the year May was born),[12] it is astonishing that the youngest daughter was able to pursue artistic training at all. But thanks to her indomitable passion for art, the support of liberally- minded parents, and financial assistance from her sister Louisa and other female relatives and family friends, May was able to cobble together relatively brief periods of artistic instruction from a variety of sources into a bona-fide art education. Her first formative experience was at the Boston School of Design, which May attended from at least December 1858 until April 1859.[13] The first art school in Boston, the Boston School of Design was founded in 1851 by Ednah Dow Cheney in order to give women an opportunity to gain skills as designers for manufacturing firms, a growing field of employment for women following the Civil War.[14] Yet May was interested in being a fine artist rather than a designer, and thanks to the teaching of Stephen Salisbury Tuckerman (1830–1904), she at least learned how to draw the human body, albeit from the study of casts of ancient sculpture.[15] May’s brief experience at the School of Design must have revealed to her that women artists needed more options in order to gain an education that was on a par with that of their male counterparts. To make up for this institutional deficit, May received instruction in drawing, painting, and sculpture for brief periods throughout the 1860s from three of the foremost artists in Boston, namely David Claypoole Johnston (1799–1865), William Rimmer (1816–79), and William Morris Hunt (1824–79).[16] At the same time she taught drawing, first at Dr. Wilbur’s asylum in Syracuse, NY, then at Frank Sanborn’s school in Concord, and eventually at her own private studio in Boston.[17] According to Louisa, by 1868 May was offering five or six drawing classes in Boston, which provides some evidence of her success as a teacher. [18] 20 Dabbs: Empowering American Women Artists: The Travel Writings of May Alcott Nieriker Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 15, no. 3 (Autumn 2016) In 1868, May also provided four illustrations to part one of Louisa’s Little Women (see fig. 2 for one example), however, due to her lack of figure study, they were met with mixed reviews.[19] Clearly there was more for the young artist to learn, and having exhausted the limited educational opportunities for women artists in Boston, May’s next step, as was the case for many American artists in the nineteenth century, was to go to Europe. Not only did its museums present an abundance of artistic masterpieces for study and emulation, but Europe also offered highly qualified teachers and more esteemed exhibition opportunities. May had expressed a strong desire to go abroad as early as 1863;[20] yet, travel and study in Europe required a substantial investment of money. Serendipitously, like her alter ego Amy March, May (albeit at the more advanced age of 30), was invited to go to Europe as the travel companion of Alice Bartlett, a wealthy young family friend;[21] Louisa also was to come as their “duenna.”[22] Together the three women made the popular grand tour of Europe between April 1870 and May 1871.[23] This experience was critical for May as she gained confidence in venturing out on her own in foreign cities, a behavior that at least some of her American compatriots would have considered risky at best.[24] In a letter to her sister Anna, May wrote, “I am quite hardened now, and think nothing of poking round strange cities alone.”[25] Armed with a dagger “in case of emergencies,”[26] Alcott Nieriker was driven by her need to experience the world and its art, even if it meant riding on top of a carriage, despite the protestations of her travelling companions that she was “insane.”[27] Fig. 2, May Alcott, frontispiece, Louisa M. Alcott, Little Women (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1868). Photograph by the author. [larger image] Trying to capture the beauty of the picturesque European sights quickly frustrated May, especially because she lacked experience in landscape painting. In a letter to her sister Anna she wrote, “If I could only use colors easily all would go well, but never having painted from nature, I am timid about beginning.”[28] Fortunately, at the conclusion of their European sojourn in May 1871, May stayed on in London to take watercolor lessons from T. L. Rowbotham, Jr.,[29] thanks to Louisa’s largesse.[30] Her studies were cut short, however, when in November 1871 she was needed back home in Concord due to the ill health of both her mother and Louisa.[31] Although May readily fulfilled her familial duties, she was not about to give up on her dream of being a fine artist.

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